Pages

Let’s get shredded

1:16 PM

The move’s side effects left some noticeable trace on my body, my weight crept back to 75kg, and a puffier mid section, thanks to many days of outside food, maggi noodles, and an increase in donut intake before the kitchen less carb induced debacle. As I said I eat when I’m stressed out…while I try to be reasonable and strike a good balance between junk and healthy stuff, nothing calms murderous thoughts like a chocolate anything. So between going on a killing spree (or rather screaming my head off at anybody and make them run for cover) or staying calm and gaining a few…what would you chose?

So yes here I am, heavy, and determined once more to do something about it. Fortunately during the move we unearthed my Jillian Michaels 30 day shred DVD. Unavailable in India, i got that one through torrents download after so many of the moms in my ivillage expecting club raved about. The first time I tried it was May 2010, and in 6 days I lost 2kg. I never did the whole programme, because I fell sick, then we were moving to Navi Mumbai, and I forgot about it until settled in our new quarters in NRI complex, but the heat and humidity made me give up after 10 minutes. This time around, I vowed myself not to give in to excuses, and while I took 2 Sundays off and a day in the middle of last week, I’ve done 7 days so far, and even on the days off I was on the move doing something else...DH tagged along after 2 days of me doing it, and we are trying to set the 25 minutes it takes to complete a level together.

Now all those not in the know, this programme is rather brutal, it is destined to push your body a bit outside the comfort zone. The first day you will be wishing to die, strongly tempted to just hit the stop button on your player, and quit….DON’T Yes it is hard, but let me tell you it is worth it, you will have sore muscles the next day, but don’t quit, just do it again, and again and again, I’m not kidding when I tell you that you get to see results after 3 days, not in the sense of weight loss, but rather in the general shape of your body, you will notice slightly more defined muscles, a better posture, and harder stuff under the flab. Her method is a 3-2-1 system with 3 cycles, meaning 3 minutes of strength 2 minutes of cardio and one minutes of abs, repeated 3 times, no break, no time to catch your breath, you are on the move the whole time, the warm up section is made to elevate your heart rate, and the only time you finally get your rest is during the stretching in the end. You just go go go the whole time. All you need to do this programme is a set of weights. Start light, and work your way into the programme. Last year I took the 1.5kg weights I had, and they were heavy, they could have been weighting a ton for all I cared, but 3 days into the programme you start feeling less pain, and an increased sense of gratification at you not being the limpy flabby bits of human being you thought you were. This time I first started with the 1.5kg again, they were heavy but not so much as last year, I guess carrying a toddler around does pay off a little, when DH said he wanted to do the work out with me, I told him he could take my weights and I would take the two steel unloaded rods that he bought with his disk dumbbell set 2 years ago, the steel rods are 2kg each and I started on day 2 with them, I felt the difference in weight, and yes felt like screaming, but the next day was easier, now 7 days later, the 2kg weights are too light, I’m not getting much resistance with them, that’s how fast my body adapted to the workout, since I told DH I would wait for him to complete the 10 days of level one before going together to level 2 I need to increase the weight to at least 3kg, a thing we’ve been looking for this weekend but haven’t found yet. 7 days into it, I haven’t lost any weight, but I’m less out of shape than last time, so what is likely to be happening this time is my building more muscle mass faster, rather than spending half of the first level loosing some fluids due to water retention, but while no weight has been lost, I lost one inch all over, going from a 42-35-42 to a 41-34-41. One word of caution though with the programme, it can be murder for the knees. I have a congenital knee defect, had surgery in one knee ages ago, my orthopaedic surgeon always told me to go easy on the high impact activities. So if you are like me, you might want to modify thing a little, her cardio routine involves a lot of jumping, jumping jacks, jump rope style skip, butt kicks and what not, while she has a lower impact version for beginners, many of the moves are still treacherous for weak joints. I for myself can do one set of her jumping jacks, but after that my keen start paining, do the second and I am ready to scream in pain, the thing to do is to replace these high impact cardio moves with lower impact ones, I do more of her punches move instead of the jumping jacks, do not jump with my two feet up during the jump rope move preferring to do an alternate skip move, and barely lift my feet during the butt kick. In her strength routine in level one she couples biceps curls with lunges, and have side lunges in another set, they too can kill knees, I do one set the way she designed it to be done, then keep my legs static in one position that still engage quad muscles without moving my faulty knees. I still get quite a lot out of the workout without injuring my knees any further. If you are unsure about your health and joints, I would seek medical expertise before pushing yourself into these moves. What matters in that work out is for you to get your heart rate strong, and several muscle groups engaged during the strength cycle, in the end how you achieve that doesn’t matter much as long as you just grasp the concept and follow through the general idea of the 3-2-1 system.

Also since it is a strenuous programme which might have you wanting to quit, if you aren’t the most will powered person on the planet, you might want to find an exercise buddy to do it with you. I know that the reason I haven’t quit so far is that DH is doing it with me, and DH says the same, confessing that he wouldn’t have lasted more than 3-4 days on it if doing it alone. All in all we are getting fitter, and having fun doing it as a couple activity.

“Cynthia Haller is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.in.”